As Sony moves to bring their Playstation and Entertainment Networks back online it’s been revealed that Amazon.com’s cloud computing service was used to launch an attack on the networks on April 16th according to Sony who is working with the FBI to try and track down the hackers who closed down over 100 million Sony accounts for nearly a month.Sony said that the hackers launched the attack from Amazon Web Service’s EC2 service, a move that has resulted in Sony losing millions in revenue. The Japanese company is also facing the prospect of court action that could result in users being compensated for their subscription.
Bloomberg said that hackers using an alias signed up to rent a server through Amazon’s EC2 service and launched the attack from there, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information is confidential. The account has been shut down, the person said.
The development sheds light on how hackers used the so- called cloud to carry out the second-biggest online theft of personal information to date. The incursion, which compromised the personal accounts of more than 100 million Sony customers, was “a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack,” Sony has said.
Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon, declined to comment.
“We’re continuing to work with law enforcement in an ongoing investigation into the situation,” said Patrick Seybold, a spokesman for Tokyo-based Sony. “As such, we will not comment further on this matter.”
The hackers didn’t break into the Amazon servers, the person said. Rather, they signed up for the service just as a legitimate company would, using fake information.
